By KDG
July 12 2005

All the "minnows" of the 2003 World cup with the exception of Namibia have made it to the 2007 World Cup. They will be joined by 3 new minnows. 14 teams played in the 2003 World Cup. Aside from the 10 test-playing teams, there were 4 minnows: Kenya, Namibia, Netherlands and Canada. Most would include Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in that list as well.

Surprisingly, Zimbabwe got to the Super Six, while Kenya stunned the cricket world by reaching the semifinals along with Australia, India, and Sri Lanka. In addition, Canda easily defeated Bangladesh. England came perilously close to being defeated by Namibia, while Holland put up a good show against both the eventual finalists: India and Australia.

This went to show that a "minnow" team does not necessarily present an easy and guaranteed result.

For the 2007 World Cup, the qualification tournament has just concluded and from the minnow list in 2003, only Namibia failed to make it. There will be 3 new ones playing: Scotland, Ireland and Bermuda, for a total of 16 teams.

The ICC has already announced, in an effort to reduce the number of overwhelmingly one-sided matches, that the top 5 teams and the host will not play any of the minnows. That leaves the rest of the senior teams to fight it out in qualifying rounds with the minnows to enter the main event.

Time will tell if a few of the weakest teams in the world can pull a surprise in the next Cup, as they did in 2003.